HYATTSVILLE, Md. (AP) — Lawyers for a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador will ask a federal judge on Friday to order the Trump Administration to return him to the U.S.
The White House already has argued against the idea in legal briefs. They have cast Kilmar Abrego Garcia as an MS-13 gang member and assert that U.S. courts lack jurisdiction over the matter because the Salvadoran national is no longer in the U.S.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys have countered there is no evidence he was in MS-13. The allegation is based on a confidential informant’s claim in 2019 that Abrego Garcia was a member of a chapter in New York, where he has never lived.
Abrego Garcia’s mistaken deportation, described by the White House as an “administrative error,” has outraged many and raised concerns about expelling noncitizens who were granted permission to be in the U.S.
The 29-year-old had a permit from the Department of Homeland Security to legally work in the U.S., his attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said. Abrego Garcia served as a sheet metal apprentice and was pursuing his journeyman license.
Abrego Garcia fled El Salvador around 2011 because he and his family were facing threats by local gangs. A U.S. immigration judge granted him protection in 2019 from being deported back to El Salvador because he was likely to face gang persecution.
Abrego Garcia was released by the immigration judge, while Immigrations and Customs Enforcement did not appeal the decision or try to deport him to another country.
Abrego Garcia later married Vasquez Sura, who is a U.S. citizen, and the couple are parents to their son and her two children from a previous relationship.
A morning rally is scheduled on his behalf in Hyattsville, Maryland, and will include his wife. The afternoon court hearing is set for U.S. District Court in Greenbelt outside of Washington, D.C.
